Rambling On

I hit it big time!

Last evening I asked my husband to drive me into town into the big fabric sale that was going on in one of our fabric stores. Well…. I found some amazing deals and ended up spending quite a bit more money than I had originally planned. I was able to buy enough material to make at least four handcrafted bags and with the money I saved I also picked up some graduation invitations as well. Although I don’t need these invitations this year, I will need them next year so I’ll just put them away until I need them.

Well now with all this fabric I have, I’ll be able to start making my bags. Hopefully I can sell them at a reasonable price and start to earn a little income from my home crafting business very soon.

Busy making jewelry

This time of year is not only my favorite time of year because it’s the Christmas season, but it’s also my favorite time of year because this is when I see the most sales for my jewelry. So for the past month or so I have been busy making tons of jewelry to sell at Christmas craft fairs. There is no better feeling than to be able to deliver an order to a customer and see how pleased they are with their purchase. I think making sure to ensure my order fulfillment to all my customers has enabled me to have repeat customers as well. So this year I will be headed out to all the craft shows to try to sell all my inventory. Wish me luck!

My eyes are starting to cross

I have spent so much time on the Internet these past few days that my eyes are starting to go cross eyed. Nope, I haven’t really been doing a lot of blogging, I have been busy writing a 40 page report on online dating. Yes, you read that right, 40 pages. So far it has taken me three days to get as far as I have. Oh, what I would give to start writing about something else right now. Even a topic such as rock tumblers sounds like a great idea to me. Oh well, a couple of more days and my report will be done and I will be able to submit and get paid. Honestly at this point the thought of getting paid is the only thing that is keeping me routed to my chair. I’ll be sure to let you know when all 40 pages are finally done.

First Christmas sale!

Last Sunday I had my first Christmas jewelry sale. I sold one of my three stranded beaded necklace, bracelet and earrings set. My friend was so impressed with the look of the set that she asked me if I would bring down the rest of my jewelry so she make take a look at them and possibly do another sale. It’s a real good thing that I finally learned how to make earrings because apparently people want to buy earrings when they buy any one of my sets. So this Sunday I will be taking all my jewelry to work for my co-worker to take a look at and hopefully I’ll be able to report back next week that I have made many more sales.

Christmas can be stressful

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about the upcoming Christmas season and about how ready (or not) we both are. My friend was a little stressed out by this conversation as she has nothing bought for her family yet and really has no money to make any purchases. She has been considering applying for a credit card just to see her through this gift buying season, but has come across so many bad credit card offers that she is really starting to get a little scared.

I have been trying to give her good tips on how to decide which credit cards are right for her and which cards she should probably stay away from. I’ve used a credit card before for some of my Christmas purchases, but I’ve always paid them off quite quickly so I didn’t incur a large amount of interest charges. I’m just not sure if she would be able to do this. But if she’s determined to apply for a credit card to pay for all her purchases, then hopefully she will do a lot of research and apply for the best one that will suit her needs at this time. Otherwise I guess I haven’t been much help to her. But it does make me feel bad when the Christmas season approaches and people end up getting seriously stress over the whole thing.

A call out to all freelancers

So my dream about going back out into the workforce was short lived. I was going to accept my old position back at my former place of employment, but after talking to my husband, it was decided that this just isn’t possible. I am unable to return back to work due to his hours at his job. He is on call 24/7 so he could get a call out at any time. This means I have to be able to be close to home.

So because of this I have decided to see if I can get a couple of freelance writing jobs. So this post is going out of all you freelance writers. First of all if you work from home, where did you find the companies who employ you? And if you work as a freelancer, are you happy with your work? I’d really like to be able to supplement my income and paid blogging just doesn’t seem to be enough.

So any and all comments would be greatly appreciated.

Nice surprise

Yesterday in the mail my husband received what we thought was his pay stub. But since he already received it last week we were a little curious as to why they would send another one. Well you can imagine our surprise when he opened it up to discover that it wasn’t a pay stub, but a stub telling him that he received a bonus in his bank account. The reason why we were so surprised was because he already got a bonus in March so we were not expecting another one this year. So he checked his bank account and sure enough the money was in there. It’s a good thing too. Because we still have quite a bit back to school shopping to do. So this money will come in very handy.

Taking down my Etsy shop

In January I set up an Etsy shop to try to promote and sell some of my handcrafted jewelry.  I decided to give it a few months to see if this would be a  viable solution to my lack of sales.  But I am sorry to report that this little venture didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to.  So I’ve made a decision.  I have decided to dismantle the Etsy shop and try to sell my products through other methods.  Thankfully my little test didn’t cost me a whole lot of money, but it did teach me that this method is not the way to go for me.  So when my listings expire, I will de-list all my items and close the Etsy shop for good.  I’m glad I tried it, but it’s now time to move on.

Saving money

With only one income coming into our household, I am constantly looking for different ways to save money. I have been using Snapfish coupons, buying things in bulk and cutting out on most of the extras. I find during the summer months that it’s a whole lot easier to save money then when the kids are in school. During the school year I am spending a lot of money in gas driving them back and forth to the bus stop and spending a lot more in food money as they need snacks and lunch items. And don’t get me started on how much cash I fork out in a run of a week for different activities during the school year. Saving money is a hard thing to do for anyone, but everyday I am learning more and more about how to go about doing this.

Project wonderful update

A few weeks ago, I joined a money making program called Project Wonderful.  This post is to give you an update on my experiences so far.  Now, first of all I’m not going to tell you all that I’m getting rich off this site, because I’m not.  But, I am starting to see a little bit of income trickle from this site, so I don’t believe that this is a waste of my time.  Because I have four blogs in their system, the flow of money is coming in at a reasonable rate.

If your wondering how you can get involved with this program, I’ll tell you all about it.  All you need to do is set up your own account through them and then start accepting bids for advertisers to place their ads on your site.  Right now my bidding is set at $0.02 as I feel with a low bid amount, I may get more advertisers.  For this amount, I do get a percentage and project wonderful gets a percentage as well.

As I stated, you will not get rich off this site.  But if you would like to join a site where all you need to do is sign up and start accepting bids to earn a little spare cash, then this site may be just the thing your looking for.  It doesn’t require a lot of time or work and eventually you will see the pennies add up.